The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see
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The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see resource for landlubbers and mariners alike.

Carol Gafford is a public librarian, family historian, amateur archivist and book savior. She is currently the youth services/outreach librarian at the Swansea Public Library and volunteers for several museum and historical societies including the Marine Museum at Fall River, the Swansea Historical Society and the Bristol Historical and Preservation society. She is the editor of Past Times, the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists and is always looking for a new project to take on.

WILMINGTON — Jay Pandolfo grew up in Burlington and spent four years at Boston University. He attended the Boston Marathon several times, so he knows it well and understands what Patriots’ Day means in Massachusetts.

In a somber Bruins dressing room Tuesday at Ristuccia Arena after practice, the bombings in Copley Square on Monday hit home a little closer for him.

“It’s pretty shocking,” Pandolfo said. “You don’t expect something like this to happen, especially at the Boston Marathon where it’s such a lifelong goal of theirs to finish a marathon and you’ve got family and friends there watching you. For this to happen, I can’t really describe the feeling, especially for people directly involved in it.”

Pandolfo was at home when he heard about the attacks through a text message. He turned on his TV and took in the awful news.

“You’re sitting at home and you’re kind of in shock,” he said. “You can’t believe this can happen, especially on a day of the marathon, which is always an exciting day in Boston — you have the Red Sox game, you have the marathon, students from around the schools go down and have a good time. To think that you need to worry about doing that is a pretty bad feeling.”

Pandolfo experienced a similar situations, albeit on a much larger scale, during the 9/11 attack in 2001. Pandolfo played for the Devils then.

“It’s the same type of feeling,” he said. “Growing up, you never think you’re going to have to worry about something like this. For it to happen once, at 9/11, is something you thought you’d never see, and then for this to happen again, it’s shocking. Obviously it’s not as big a scale as 9/11, but to worry about these things in the United States, it’s disappointing.”